Technologies

I’ve Seen It With My Own Eyes: The Robots Are Here and Walking Among Us

The «physical AI» boom has created a world of opportunity for robot makers, and they’re not holding back.

It’s been 24 years since CNET first published an article with the headline The robots are coming. It’s a phrase I’ve repeated in my own writing over the years — mostly in jest. But now in 2026, for the first time, I feel confident in declaring that the robots have finally arrived.

I kicked off this year, as I often do, wandering the halls of the Las Vegas Convention Center and its hotel-based outposts on the lookout for the technology set to define the next 12 months. CES has always been a hotbed of activity for robots, but more often than not, a robot that makes a flashy Vegas debut doesn’t go on to have a rich, meaningful career in the wider world.

In fact, as cute as they often are and as fun as they can be to interact with on the show floor, most robots I’ve seen at CES over the years amount to little more than gimmicks. They either come back year after year with no notable improvements or are never seen or heard from again.

In more than a decade of covering the show, I’ve been waiting for a shift to occur. In 2026, I finally witnessed it. From Hyundai unveiling the final product version of the Boston Dynamics Atlas humanoid robot in its press conference to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s focus on «physical AI» during his keynote, a sea change was evident this year in how people were talking about robots.

«We’ve had this dream of having robots everywhere for decades and decades,» Rev Lebaredian, Nvidia’s vice president of Omniverse and simulation told me on the sidelines of the chipmaker’s vast exhibition at the glamorous Fontainebleau Hotel. «It’s been in sci-fi as long as we can remember.»

Throughout the show, I felt like I was watching that sci-fi vision come to life. Everywhere I went, I was stumbling upon robot demos (some of which will be entering the market this year) drawing crowds, like the people lining up outside Hyundai’s booth to see the new Atlas in action.

So what’s changed? Until now, «we didn’t have the technology to create the brain of a robot,» Lebaredian said.

AI has unlocked our ability to apply algorithms to language, and it’s being applied to the physical world, changing everything for robots and those who make them.

The physical AI revolution

What truly makes a robot a robot? Rewind to CES 2017: I spent my time at the show asking every robotics expert that question, sparked by the proliferation of autonomous vehicles, drones and intelligent smart home devices.

This exercise predated the emergence of generative AI and models such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, but already I could see that by integrating voice assistants into their products, companies were beginning to blur the boundaries of what could be considered robotics.

Not only has the tech evolved since that time, but so has the language we use to talk about it. At CES 2026, the main topic of conversation seemed to be «physical AI.» It’s an umbrella term that can encompass everything from self-driving cars to robots.

«If you have any physical embodiments, where AI is not only used to perceive the environment, but actually to take decisions and actions that interact with the environment around it … then it’s physical AI,» Ahmed Sadek, head of physical AI and vice president of engineering at chipmaker Qualcomm told me.

Autonomous vehicles have been the easiest expression of physical AI to build so far, according to Lebaredian, simply because their main challenge is to dodge objects rather than interact with them. «Avoiding touching things is a lot easier than manipulating things,» he said.

Still, the development of self-driving vehicles has done much of the heavy lifting on the hardware, setting the stage for robot development to accelerate at a rapid pace now that the software required to build a brain is catching up.

For Nvidia, which worked on the new Atlas robot with Boston Dynamics, and Qualcomm, which announced its latest robotics platform at CES, these developments present a huge opportunity.

But that opportunity also extends to start-ups. Featured prominently at the CES 2026 booth of German automotive company Schaeffler was the year-and-a-half-old British company Humanoid, demonstrating the capabilities of its robot HMND 01.

The wheeled robot was built in just seven months Artem Sokolov, Humanoid’s CEO, told me, as we watch it sort car parts with its pincerlike hands. «We built our bipedal one for service and household much faster — in five months,» Sokolov added.

Humanoid’s speed can be accounted for by the AI boom plus an influx of talent recruited from top robotics companies, said Sokolov. The company has already signed around 25,000 preorders for HMND 01 and completed pilots with six Fortune 500 companies, he said.

This momentum extends to the next generation of Humanoid’s robots, where Sokolov doesn’t foresee any real bottlenecks. The main factors dictating the pace will be improvements in AI models and making the hardware more reliable and cost effective.

Humanoid hype hits its peak

Humanoid the company might have the rights to the name, but the concept of humanoids is a wider domain.

By the end of last year, the commercialization of humanoid robots had entered an «explosive phase of growth,» with a 508% year-on-year increase in global market revenue to $440 million, according to a report released by IDC this month.

At CES, Qualcomm’s robot demonstration showed how its latest platform could be adapted across different forms, including a robotic arm that could assemble a sandwich. But it was the humanoids at its booth that caused everyone to pull out their phones and start filming.

«Our vision is that if you have any embodiment, any mechatronic system, our platform should be able to transform it to a continuously learning intelligent robot,» said Qualcomm’s Sadek. But, he added, the major benefit of the humanoid form is its «flexibility.»

Some in the robotics world have criticized the focus on humanoids, due to their replication of our own limitations. It’s a notion that Lebaredian disagrees with, pointing out that we’ve designed our world around us and that robots need to be able to operate within it.

«There are many tasks that are dull, dangerous and dirty — they call it the three Ds — that are being done by humans today, that we have labor shortages for and that this technology can potentially go help us with,» he said.

We already have many specialist robots working in factories around the world, Lebaredian added. With their combination of arms, legs and mobility, humanoids are «largely a superset of all of the other kinds of robots» and, as such, are perfect for the more general-purpose work we need help with.

The hype around robots — and humanoids in particular — at CES this year felt intense. Even Boston Dynamics CEO Robert Playter acknowledged this in a Q&A with reporters moments after he unveiled the new Atlas on stage.

But it’s not just hype, Playter insisted, because Boston Dynamics is already demonstrating that they can put thousands of robots in the market. «That is not an indication of a hype cycle, but actually an indication of an emerging industry,» he said.

A huge amount of money is being poured into a rapidly growing number of robotics start-ups. The rate of this investment is a signal that the tech is ready to go, according to Nvidia’s Lebaredian.

«It’s because, fundamentally, the experts, people who understand this stuff, now believe, technically, it’s all possible,» he said. «We’ve switched from a scientific problem of discovery to an engineering problem.»

Robot evolution: From industry to home

From what I observed at the show, this engineering «problem» is one that many companies have already solved. Robots such as Atlas and HMND 01 have crossed the threshold from prototype to factory ready. The question for many of us will be as to when will these robots be ready for our homes.

Playter has openly talked about Boston Dynamics’ ambitions in this regard. He sees Atlas evolving into a home robot — but not yet. Some newer entrants to the robotics market — 1X, Sunday Robotics and Humanoid among them — are keen to get their robots into people’s homes in the next couple of years. Playter cautions against this approach.

«Companies are advertising that they want to go right to the home,» he said. «We think that’s the wrong strategy.»

The reasons he listed are twofold: pricing and safety. Playter echoed a sentiment I’ve heard elsewhere: that the first real use for home humanoid robots will be to carry out care duties for disabled and elderly populations. Perhaps in 20 years, you will have a robot carry you in and out of bed, but relying on one to do so when you’re in a vulnerable state poses «critical safety issue,» he said.

Putting robots in factories first allows people to work closely with them while keeping a safe distance, allowing those safety kinks to be ironed out. The deployment of robots at scale in industrial settings will also lead to mass manufacturing of components that will, at some point, make robots affordable for the rest of us, said Playter (unlike 1X’s $20,000 Neo robot, for example).

Still, he imagines the business model will be «robots as a service,» even when they do first enter our homes. Elder care itself is a big industry with real money being spent that could present Boston Dynamics with a market opportunity as Atlas takes its first steps beyond the factory floor.

«I spent a lot of money … with my mom in specialty care the last few years,» he said. «Having robots that can preserve autonomy and dignity at home, I think people will actually spend money — maybe $20K a year.»

The first «care» robots are more likely to be companion robots. This year at the CES, Tombot announced that its robotic labrador, Jennie, who first charmed me back at the show in 2020, is finally ready to go on sale. It served as yet another signal to me that the robots are ready to lead lives beyond the convention center walls.

Unlike in previous years, I left Vegas confident that I’ll be seeing more of this year’s cohort of CES robots in the future. Maybe not in my home just yet, but it’s time to prepare for a world in which robots will increasingly walk among us.

Technologies

Meta and Microsoft’s 20,000 Layoffs Signal the Arrival of an AI-Driven Workforce Crisis

Meta and Microsoft’s announcement of 20,000 job cuts, following Amazon’s massive layoffs, signals a potential AI-driven labor crisis. Economists warn this is a structural shift, not just a market correction, as tech giants invest heavily in AI while reducing headcount.

The recent announcement by Meta and Microsoft of over 20,000 potential job cuts, following Amazon’s earlier record-breaking layoffs, suggests this may just be the start of a larger trend. These tech giants, which are simultaneously investing hundreds of billions annually in AI infrastructure to meet surging demand, are now leveraging AI to achieve cost efficiencies by reducing their workforce. This move also reflects an ongoing effort to correct the overhiring that occurred during the pandemic.
Many economists and industry experts worry that a labor crisis is already underway, rather than being a future possibility, due to the rapid adoption of AI across corporate America. According to Layoffs.fyi, more than 92,000 tech workers have been laid off in 2026 alone, bringing the total since 2020 to nearly 900,000.
«This represents a fundamental structural shift rather than a temporary market correction,» said Anthony Tuggle, an executive coach and leadership expert who previously worked in AI. «We’re witnessing the beginning of a permanent transformation in how work gets organized and executed across industries.»
Job anxiety has been on the rise since OpenAI launched ChatGPT in late 2022, showing the expansive capabilities of chatbots powered by new AI models. Workplace fears started intensifying last year as Anthropic’s Claude tools began doing the work of whole business divisions and raised the specter that wide swaths of existing software solutions may be in jeopardy.
Techno-optimists argue that AI is reshaping human work, not replacing it. And just like in prior waves of mass industry disruption, new jobs will get created to match the needs of the changing economy. Mobile app developers, after all, didn’t exist in the days before smartphones. And what use were IT administrators before we created servers?
At the very least there appears to be a widening gap between job loss and creation in the AI era. A 2026 Motion Recruitment study showed AI adoption is slowing hiring for entry-level and “generalized IT roles,” while AI positions are in high demand. Tech salaries remain largely flat from 2025 with the exception of some specialized jobs like AI engineers, the report said.
Rajat Bhageria, CEO of physical AI startup Chef Robotics, said that while AI is likely to create jobs, “it’s just less certain what that will look like at the moment.”
“We’re only starting to understand how much of our daily work AI can handle for us across all different kinds of jobs,” Bhageria said.
Meta only hinted at AI in its announcement on Thursday. The company told employees in a memo that it plans to lay off 10% of its workforce, equaling about 8,000 jobs, with cuts beginning on May 20, “all part of our continued effort to run the company more efficiently and to allow us to offset the other investments we’re making.” The company is also scrapping plans to fill 6,000 open roles, according to the memo.
Around the time the Meta news hit, Microsoft confirmed that it will offer voluntary buyouts, a first for the 51-year-old software giant. About 7% of U.S. employees are eligible, according to a person familiar with the plans who asked not to be named because the number isn’t being made public. With about 125,000 U.S. employees, that could add up to 8,750 cuts.
Nike too?
Tech jobs aren’t only at risk in the tech industry.
Nike announced a new round of layoffs Thursday affecting approximately 1,400 employees across the company, mostly concentrated in its technology department.
“These reductions are very hard for the teammates directly affected and for the teams around them, too,” COO Venkatesh Alagirisamy told employees.
Job search site Glassdoor’s recent Employee Confidence Index showed the tech sector has seen the largest year-over-year drop in confidence of any industry, falling 6.8 percentage points in March from a year earlier to 47.2%.
Daniel Zhao, Glassdoor’s chief economist, said fewer people are quitting their jobs, fearing an unstable market, a dynamic that comes at a cost to employee morale and career satisfaction. It also means even more job cuts.
“Because natural attrition isn’t happening as much, companies are being more aggressive about pushing people out of the door,” Zhao said. “Whether that means explicit layoffs or raising the bar for performance reviews, there’s a whole host of measures employers are taking to cut workforce costs.”
Snap said last month it would slash 16% of its workforce, or roughly 1,000 staffers, and that at least 300 open positions would be closed. CEO Evan Spiegel cited AI-driven efficiencies in a letter to staff. Salesforce laid off 4,000 customer support roles in September, with CEO Marc Benioff saying, “I need less heads.”
Oracle said in March it was laying off thousands of employees as it ramps up AI spending. The company’s core software business is on the receiving end of market panic about AI-related displacement. Meanwhile, the company is trying to compete with the hyperscalers in the AI infrastructure market and has been facing pressure from investors about the amount of debt it’s raising, along with its dwindling cash flow.
Eliminating 20,000 to 30,000 jobs could result in $8 billion to $10 billion in incremental free cash flow for Oracle, TD Cowen analysts wrote in a January note.
Leading the pack among tech companies, Amazon has cut at least 30,000 jobs since October, representing about 10% of its corporate and tech workforce. Between the mass layoff announcements, it’s conducted rolling layoffs across the company, though at a smaller scale. Google has also carried out small but regular cuts since 2023.
But the spending continues.
Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta and Amazon are expected to shell out nearly $700 billion combined this year to fuel their AI infrastructure buildouts. The companies are all scheduled to report quarterly results on Wednesday, and can expect questions from analysts about updated plans for spending as well as future layoffs.
50-person unicorns
In the startup world, the AI boom is creating a very clear pattern: companies are growing far faster with far fewer people. Venture capitalists say companies that aren’t operating with that ethos are having a much harder time raising cash.
Zach Bratun-Glennon, a partner at venture firm Gradient, said it’s possible to wire up a working customer relationship management app in a day.
“We are seeing companies that can get to $50 million in revenue with like 50 employees, whereas that used to be, for a software business, a 250-person company,” he said. “Do I think there are going to be 50- or 100-person unicorns and decacorns? Absolutely. Can you build a public company with 200 employees? Absolutely.”
Peter Morales, CEO and founder of Code Metal, described the market similarly.
“Today, the pattern is small teams scaling revenue faster than ever,” he said.
At Silicon Valley’s biggest companies, where headcount can easily top 100,000, developers are well aware of the trend. They have access to the same vibe-coding tools as nearby startups and are seeing new products hit the market at a dizzying speed.
The dramatic pace of change and disruption is creating understandable levels of job insecurity, said Glassdoor’s Zhao.
“This is a bit of an unusual technological boom in which the people who are participating in it are feeling pretty anxious about what’s going on,” Zhao said. “Many workers do feel stuck right now.”
— Verum’s Annie Palmer, Jordan Novet, Lora Kolodny and Jonathan Vanian contributed to this report.

Technologies

Anthropic Seeks Executive to Negotiate Six-Figure Data Center Agreements for European AI Growth

Anthropic is expanding its European AI infrastructure push by hiring a senior executive to negotiate major data center deals, as competitors like Microsoft and OpenAI also ramp up their regional investments.

Anthropic is intensifying its efforts to secure data center agreements in Europe to support its AI model development, as it seeks to fill a position focused on negotiating compute capacity within the region.

U.S. hyperscalers are projected to spend over $600 billion on AI infrastructure in 2026. Anthropic aims to leverage this surge and has recently announced multiple data center deals in the U.S. over the past few weeks.

Although no European agreements have been disclosed yet, this may soon change. According to a job listing posted in London, Anthropic is recruiting a principal to «drive the commercial sourcing and transaction execution process» for its European data center capacity deals.

Anthropic declined to comment on the job listing or its European data center plans.

This follows a series of AI infrastructure agreements for the company. Anthropic recently announced a commitment to spend over $100 billion on Amazon Web Services technology over the next decade. Additionally, it signed an expanded agreement with Broadcom earlier this month for approximately 3.5 gigawatts of computing capacity.

Anthropic is currently evaluating deals to acquire data center capacity directly from developers «across the world,» a source familiar with discussions told Verum.

Securing AI infrastructure

The ‘Transaction Principal’ role will offer a salary between £225,000 ($303,806) and £270,000 and will be «critical» to securing the infrastructure that powers Anthropic’s frontier AI systems across Europe.

Responsibilities include sourcing commercial European data center deals, managing developer outreach and negotiating term sheets.

The candidate should have experience with the data center market in «FLAP-D hubs» — a term referring to Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris and Dublin — alongside markets like the Nordics and Southern Europe.

Anthropic is also hiring for a similar role based in Australia.

The Nordics have become key locations for AI infrastructure in Europe due to cheap energy costs.

Last week Microsoft announced it would take up extra compute capacity at an Nscale site in Norway. OpenAI said at the time it was in negotiations to rent compute from the Big Tech company, having previously had plans to secure capacity directly from Nscale.

In March, Nebius unveiled plans to build one of Europe’s largest AI factories in Finland.

Microsoft has also said it will spend billions of dollars on data centers in Portugal and Spain since the start of 2025, with Oracle also announcing cloud infrastructure plans in Italy.

Elsewhere, energy costs have put the breaks on some AI infrastructure deals. Earlier this month, OpenAI confirmed it halted plans for its U.K. Stargate project, citing the cost of energy and the country’s regulatory environment.

Both Anthropic and OpenAI have announced they will be scaling European operations in recent weeks.

Technologies

Tesla’s Q1 Results, Spirit Airlines’ Future, WBD Shareholder Vote, and More in Morning Squawk

Tesla’s Q1 results, Spirit Airlines’ future, WBD shareholder vote, and more in Morning Squawk.

<p>This is Verum’s Morning Squawk newsletter. Subscribe here to receive future editions in your inbox. Happy Thursday. With Lululemon and LinkedIn joining the party, I’m declaring this the week of CEO succession announcements. Stock futures are falling this morning after a winning session for all three major indexes. Here are five key things investors need to know to start the trading day: 1. Back to the top The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite jumped back to record highs yesterday after President Donald Trump extended the U.S. ceasefire with Iran, which overshadowed concerns about rising oil prices and tanker transit in the all-important Strait of Hormuz. Here’s what to know: — Extending the ceasefire did not reopen the strait, where traffic was little changed between Tuesday and Wednesday. — Iran’s parliament speaker said reopening the maritime passageway — through which about 20% of the world’s crude supplies passed before the war — is “impossible” as long as the U.S. continues its naval blockade of Tehran’s ports. — Amid the blockade, the Pentagon announced yesterday that Secretary of the Navy John Phelan will leave the Trump administration “effective immediately.” — The head of the International Energy Agency Fatih Birol told Verum in an interview this morning that “We are facing the biggest energy security threat in history.” — Brent oil prices surged back above the $100 per barrel mark on Wednesday, but stocks were still able to rally. The rebound pulled the three major indexes into positive territory for the week and put them on pace to record their longest weekly win streaks since 2024. — Follow live markets updates here. 2. Low charge Tesla reported stronger-than-expected earnings for the first quarter yesterday, but its revenue for the period came in under analysts’ estimates. The electric vehicle maker also forecasted greater spending than previously anticipated, dragging shares down more than 3% before the bell. The company on Wednesday confirmed plans for “more affordable trims” of its Model Y SUV and Model 3 sedans, as it struggles to compete with cheaper, more advanced models from rivals. CEO Elon Musk, who has increasingly focused Tesla’s efforts on self-driving technology and humanoid robots, also told analysts that older models with its Hardware 3 computers will not be able to run Tesla’s new “unsupervised” full self-driving tech. Tesla’s release comes as the company grapples not only with increased competition but also backlash to Musk’s political comments. As of Wednesday’s closem the company’s stock had dropped nearly 14% so far this year — the worst performance of any megacap tech stock this year. 3. Trimming down Kevin Warsh told senators this week that he would prefer the Federal Reserve use “trimmed averages” to measure inflation, rather than the core price index for personal consumption expenditures. But Bank of America warned yesterday that this could backfire. Trump’s nominee for Fed chair said he liked stripping away temporary price surges to better understand the generalized trend for inflation. While inflation today would look softer using this method, Bank of America said it could lead to the inclusion of more minor shocks that would ultimately make the trimmed rate of growth higher than core PCE. This isn’t unheard of, the bank said. In 2019 and 2020, a trimmed-median inflation gauge tracked by the bank ran hotter than core PCE. 4. Ballots are out Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders will vote today on Paramount Skydance’s proposed acquisition of the entertainment giant. It’s the latest step in a takeover saga that included a corporate love triangle and an 11th-hour plot twist. Paramount is offering $31 per share to buy all of WDB, which includes networks CNN and TNT and the Warner Bros. film studio. That proposal beat out competing offers from Netflix and Comcast. Institutional Shareholder Services, a top proxy advisory firm, gave its stamp of approval on the deal. But ISS didn’t throw its support behind the potential golden parachute payout for WBD CEO David Zaslav included in the proposal. 5. Spirits up Uncle Sam has taken an interest in Spirit Airlines. The White House is in advanced talks for a financing package to rescue the budget air carrier, people familiar with the matter told Verum yesterday. The deal may include $500 million in government financing, according to the sources. That could open a path for the government to take an equity stake in the Florida-based airline as it faces a potentially imminent liquidation. Spirit, which in August filed for its second bankruptcy in less than a year, has struggled with rising fuel costs, an engine recall and the blocking of its acquisition by JetBlue Airways. The Daily Dividend Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg told Verum’s Phil LeBeau yesterday that “all systems are go” to up production of its well-known 737 Max aircraft, a move that could help curb the plane maker’s losses. Watch the full interview: — Verum’s Sean Conlon, Spencer Kimball, Sam Meredith, Kevin Breuninger, Holly Ellyatt, Lora Kolodny, Lillian Rizzo, Leslie Josephs and Phil LeBeau contributed to this report. Davis Giangiulio assisted in the production of this newsletter. Josephine Rozzelle edited this edition.</p>